This was posted on a bulletin board that I frequent and should be of interest:

This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information, except the one piece they want. Note, the callers do not ask for your card number; they already have it. This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA & Master Card Telephone Credit Card Scam works, you’ll be better prepared to protect yourself. One of our employees was called on Wednesday from ‘VISA’, and I was called on Thursday from ‘Master Card’.

The scam works like this: Person calling says, ‘This is (name), and I’m calling from the Security and Fraud Department at VISA. My badge number is 12460. Your card has been flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and I’m calling to verify. This would be on your VISA card which was issued by (name of bank). Did you purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497.99 from a Marketing company based in Arizona ?’ When you say ‘No’, the caller continues with, ‘Then we will be issuing a credit to your account. This is a company we have been watching and the charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500 purchase pattern that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the credit will be sent to (gives you your address), is that correct?’ You say ‘yes’. The caller continues - ‘I will be starting a Fraud investigation. If you have any questions, you should call the 1- 800 number listed on the back of your card (1-800-VISA) and ask for Security. You will need to refer to this Control Number. The caller then gives you a 6 digit number. ‘Do you need me to read it again?’

Here’s the IMPORTANT part on how the scam works. The caller then says, ‘I need to verify you are in possession of your card.’ He’ll ask you to ‘turn your card over and look for some numbers.’ There are 7 numbers; the first 4 are part of your card number, the next 3 are the security Numbers’ that verify you are the possessor of the card. These are the numbers you sometimes use to make Internet purchases to prove you have the card. The caller will ask you to read the 3 numbers to him. After you tell the caller the 3 numbers, he’ll say, ‘That is correct, I just needed to verify that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you still have your card. Do you have any other questions?’ After you say, ‘No,’ the caller then thanks you and states, ‘Don’t hesitate to call back if you do’, and hangs up. You actually say very little, and they never ask for or tell you the Card number. But after we were called on Wednesday, we called back within 20 minutes to ask a question. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA security Department told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a new purchase of $497.99 was charged to our card.
Long story - short - we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA
account. VISA is reissuing us a new number. What the scammers want is the 3-digit PIN number on the back of the card. Don’t give it to them. Instead, tell them you’ll call VISA or Master card directly for verification of their conversation. The real VISA told us that they will never ask for anything on the card as they already know the information since they issued the card! If you give the scammers
your 3 Digit PIN Number, you think you’re receiving a credit. However, by the time you get your statement you’ll see charges for
purchases you didn’t make, and by then it’s almost too late and/or more difficult to actually file a fraud report.

Note from Joyce:  After attending a big tradeshow where I place lots of large orders, I usually get a call from my credit card company checking for fraud.  The difference between the call I get and the above narrative is that the company does not ask for any credit card information.  They only ask if I made such and such a charge and I say Yes or No.  So far, they have all been Yes.  So make sure that you don’t give these thieves any of the information from te credit card itself.

The time has passed when Flagstaff business owners can take it for granted that residents will shop locally out of mere loyalty or a desire to see tax revenues stay in town. For years, local businesses have pondered the question, “How can we keep our customers from going to Phoenix?” One local business, Creative Gifts To Go, now has us asking, “Why would they want to go to Phoenix?”

Read the rest of this article/press release  at Why go to Phoenix to shop?

If you’re not one of the few to whom just thinking about holiday shopping brings gushes of excitement, enthusiasm and intense desire to rush out to the mall, then this article is for you.

The countdown has begun.  The big day will soon be here.  We’ve put together some hints on how to enjoy the holidays without a financial hangover.

For some great ideas to keep your holiday shopping stress free

Gifts are an excellent way to build client and employee relationships. People love to be remembered and recognized, particularly when least expected. The surprise of a carefully-chosen gift can go a long way towards building good-will and turning a one-time sale into a long-term customer. Many companies include regular gift-giving as an important part of their marketing strategy.

But it’s important to select a gift that is not only memorable but also tasteful. We’ve all heard the old adage, “It’s the thought that counts”. This may be true, but careless or improper gift-giving can do your cause or relationship more harm than good. Gifts are never a substitute for a caring attitude, good business practices, goodwill or company manners.

Business gift-giving has come a long way since Harry and David graduated from selling fruit at a roadside stand into mail order back in 1948. A lot of products have been introduced, tried, and then discarded as appropriate gifts for business customers and employees.

Read the rest of this article at Business Gift Giving

The generation gap between the elderly and the young can oftentimes be a large one.  But a group of local college students helped close that gap today.  The Kayettes, a service organization at Northern Arizona University sponsored by the Kiwanis Club, served their annual holiday dinner for the senior members of the community.  The only prerequisite for attending is that you be 60 years old or older — income, or lack of it made no difference. 

This delightful group of young ladies provided a turkey dinner, complete with all the trimmings, for over 100 seniors at the local adult center in addition to delivering dinners to those who are a part of the Meals on Wheels program.  Fifteen members of the Christensen Elementary School choir performed and then led the seniors in a Christmas sing-along.  There were drawings for door prizes for gifts/gift certificates provided by local businesses.

But what I think the elderly members of our community enjoyed most of all was getting a little better acquainted with some delightful members of today’s younger generation.

As head mama bear for Grand Canyon Teddy Bear Company, I enjoy discovering other Teddy Bear lovers.  Today, I was contacted about a possible link exchange by the webmaster for TravellingBears.com and found it to be a delightful website.  It is a group of TA’s (toy animals) living in Dublin, Ireland who share tales and photos of their travels throughout the world.  The site doesn’t seem to sell anything and even offers your own personal TA’s (toy animals) an opportunity to become a member of  “Toy Animals’ Rights of Finglas”.  The mission of  ”TARF is to improve the health and living conditions for TA’s not only in Finglas East, Ireland, but in the world in general.”.

It’s a fun site and their visit to the United States has some familiar locales.  They even visited the Grand Canyon but, alas, must not have known about the Grand Canyon Teddy Bears while they were here.  The next time you have some spare moments and want to enjoy a simple but delightful website, pop on over and take a look.

And, while you’re at it, if you happen to know someone who is a teddy bear lover or just enjoys a fun gift, the bears at Grand Canyon Teddy Bears are always looking for someone to love.  The Bear of the Month Club is a teddy bear gift that just keeps on giving.

Like most people in today’s world, I own a cell phone.  The number is on my answering machine so that customers can reach me when I’m out taking a hike in the woods with my dog, enjoying a leisurely lunch with my husband, or just away from my office.  I don’t have the number on my websites and I don’t hand it out freely.  Why? Because I don’t want to be a slave to the cell phone.

 Every day I see people walking around, looking like they are talking to themselves until I notice the tiny cell phone held to their ears.  Or, just yesterday, when I was standing in the checkout line at Walgreens, a woman who I had seen talking non-stop on her cell phone the whole time I had been in the store, was still chatting away as she paid and walked out the door.  She was so busy with her conversation, however, that she left her package on the counter when she left. 

Cell phones have brought freedom to many people throughout the world who would never have the opportunity to connect with a land phone.  Mine has brought freedom to me by allowing me to escape the mundane routines of my business while still staying in touch with customers.  But cell phones have also brought rudeness and disrespect to the world.  And the ability to text message has made it even worse.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I like to have the full attention of someone that I am talking to or conducting business with.  How can a clerk practice her smile and positive customer relations when the customer is ignoring her while chatting away with someone else.  Teachers deserve the attention and respect of their students while trying to teach.  And, yes, even the minister in your church deserves your attention while he is preaching to you.

My cell phone provides the opportunity for my customers and family to reach me.  But it is not an entertainment vehicle.  I don’t even know (or want to know) how to take pictures, send text messages, download games, or all the numerous other things that it is apparently capable of.  When I was searching for my latest cell phone, because a new phone was cheaper than a new battery, it was impossible to find one that was “just a phone”. 

Yes, cell phones are great.  But a slave to a cell phone is not something that I am or that I will ever be.

As a successful business woman who operates over nine different websites profitably, I find it annoying when a young “teeny-bopper”, that is young enough to be my grandchild, treats me like a “little old lady who doesn’t know a thing about electronics” when I go into a store to buy something for my computer business. 

But yesterday I was feeling exactly like they must have been picturing me.  And the biggest discovery of all was that even though they were selling the electronics I needed, they knew little more than I did. 

Now, I’m not someone who has to have the latest fad in gadgets as long as the old one still works fine.  My Montgomery Ward freezer is a year older than my oldest daughter and she celebrated her 40th birthday in October and the Litton microwave purchased in 1980 is still going strong.  They just don’t make them like they used to!  So I was disappointed when the ten year old VCR began giving me trouble.  The Sanyo TV that we had purchased shortly after moving to Flagstaff over twenty-five years ago still has a great picture.

Ron likes to record television programs and watch them later and this VCR just wasn’t working right.  I was appointed to go out and buy a new one. The adventure began.  I quickly discovered that you can’t just buy a VCR.  It has to be a combination VCR-DVD machine.  That information was followed by the realization that not all of them record–they just play.  And some of the boxes read “this product does not record from television.”  Others said that the only way you could use them was to “have a satalite or cable box” to attach it too.  As you might have guessed, we get our programing via antenna.

After visiting numerous stores, I finally found one at Walmart that looked like it would work.  Brought it home, pulled the purchase out of the box, and began the process of connecting it.  The in and out cables from my old VCR immediately found a home on this new one.  But there was one major problem.  The new one had a cable with a white, yellow, and red plug that found a place in the new VCR/DVD but, alas, the only outlet on my TV was for the antenna.  It wasn’t going to work!

So, before taking it back, I decided that the new Best Buy store would surely have someone who knew more about this stuff than I did.  This is when I met the “tenny-bopper that is young enough to be my grandson”.  He told me that all of theirs were too advanced for my loyal television set.  However, he did happen to have one that was the store brand and had a “special box” built in that took care of these multi-colored plugs.  All I had to do was to bring it home and plug in my antenna. 

I was feeling pretty good by then.  He assured me it was exactly what I needed and what’s more, it was over $100 cheaper than the one I still had in my car to return to Walmart.  Thanking him for his expertise, I took it home, unpacked it and what did I find? That same damn cord with the red, yellow, and white plugs on each end.  He lied.

I decided to return the one to Walmart first but stopped at Sam’s Club on the way.  There I met a female version of the “teeny-bopper” at Best Buy.  She told me that the best way to determine if any of them would work was to look at the back of all their display models and see if they had the right fittings.  We did and, although one looked like it would work to me, shaking her head, she told me that none of them would work.  I would just have to buy a new television.

From there I returned the $249 one to Walmart and got a refund.  While in the store, I talked to another young man who worked in their electronics department and had the first ray of hope.  He told me that the answer to my problem was a conversion box to plug that mysterious multi-colored cord into and it only cost $16. 

By this time, I had the $249 refund from Walmart and the $89 Best Buy set still in my car.  I went ahead and bought the conversion box at Walmart and took the Best Buy set back home.  Unpacking it once again, I discovered that there was no way to connect my antenna to it.  So back to Best Buy for a refund on that one.  They were as knowledgable as they had been on my first visit.  Then it was on to Radio Shack.  They had one model in stock but it wouldn’t work either.

I had learned a lot in the 5 hours that I had spent going from store to store trying to find one of these machines that would record and play on my television set.  Rembering the one at Sam’s Club, that I thought would work but was assured by the female teeny-bopper that it would not, I decided to take my television life into my own hands and returned to try that one.  After all, by this time, I had become an expert in buying and returning.

Alas, the last one had been sold.  But I was told I could buy the display machine, minus the box which they couldn’t find, and I would get a discount of $50.  That sounded like a deal to me.  Brought it home, hooked it up via the box that the Walmart expert had steered me to, and it works!

I’ve put my hands over my ears whenever I hear someone say that everyone is going to have to have a digital TV by 2009 because I’m hoping my loyal set will still be working by then.  But I learned that there is hope.  That expert young man at Walmart has assured me that they’ll have a conversion box for that as well.

Flagstaff is known for a number of “firsts” that have affected the country.  It is the first “Dark Night City” in the U.S.  It was the site of the first Forest Experiment Station in the U.S.  Even Bambi was first discovered here as a small orphan fawn adopted by a Flagstaff family.  But another first is the creation of the Federal Aviation Administion.  It wasn’t founded here but resulted from a plane crash that happened near here.

The day was June 30th, 1956.  Two planes – United Flight  718 and TWA Flight 2 — left Los Angeles International Airport within minutes of each other.  Their flight pattern separated and then was scheduled to cross at different altitudes just north of the Grand Canyon over the Painted Desert.  Both planes had experienced crews.  One was scheduled to fly at 21,000 feet while the other’s flight path was to be 19,000 feet.  TWA Flight 2 requested a flight change to 21,000 feet because of cloud cover.  This was denied but he was given permission to fly 1,000 feet above the top of the clouds and was told that there was another plane at 21,000 feet.  The United plane was never informed of the TWA plane.

Neither plane checked in over the Painted Desert and there was no radio contact.  A half-hour later, missing aircraft alerts were issued and a search began.  Pieces of both planes were discovered near the top of two mesas in a rugged part of the Grand Canyon.  There were no survivors.  Human remains were recovered and brought out for burial.

The following morning, when businesses around the country flipped their calendar from June to July, the featured photo for the month was The Grand Canyon. 

On July 9, the remains of those aboard the TWA flight were buried in a mass grave at the Flagstaff Citizen’s Cemetery.  The passengers aboard the United flight, whose bodies could not be identified, were buried in three coffins at the Grand Canyon. 

It was later determined that the wing of one plane had sheared off the tail of the other.  Congress immediately opened an investigation and the end result of the formation of the FAA.

This is just a very brief overview of what was to be called “the greatest air tragedy in history” for a number of years.  If the story interests you, there is more detailed information at http://doney.net/aroundaz/grandcanyoncrash.htm

The ghosts and the goblins have knocked on the door, filled their bags with candy and returned home where they are transformed back into Flagstaff boys and girls. But the real ghosts will continue to haunt the historic buildings in Flagstaff.  This year, for the first time, our Visitor’s Center offered Haunted Tours of Flagstaff and demand has been heavy.  This is the time of year when many towns brush off their lore and their legends for a bit of scary fun and Flagstaff is no exception.

I’m a member of the Flagstaff Exchange Club. At today’s meeting, James Hardy, Flagstaff’s Haunting Expert, was the speaker.  Now Flagstaff isn’t old by most standards.  Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and other cities in the country have a history that goes back several hundred years while Flagstaff didn’t become a city until the late 1800’s.  But, nevertheless, we have our share of stories that can make chills run up and down your back. 

I’m not going to spoil Hardy’s fun if you decide to take advantage of next year’s Haunted Tours, which I highly recommend but I’ll entice you with a few highlights.  Our current train station, located on Route 66, wasn’t built until 1926 but there are tales of cold and errie feelings, conversations and shadows that disappear when the door is opened.  There is even  a fantom conductor who runs up the stairs from the basement to catch his train.

The current library was built on the site of Emerson School, a large 2-story brick building that served Flagstaff’s early school children.  Built in 1896, it was torn down to make way for a new library building.  Stories of a shadowy figure who was a custodian at the school, who killed his family then went to the school and killed himself, are told.  The former library building, originally a home for one of the Babbitt families and now the home of Flagstaff Theatrikos, has three resident ghosts.  One is a kindly-looking old lady who occasionally visits during a period production and then disappears.  She doesn’t seem to enjoy those modern plays.

And then there’s the Weatherford Hotel and the Monte Vista  Hotel with strange visitors and spirits that make noises, move things around, ring the lobby telephone and knock things over. 

If you happen to be a believer in the spirit world, the ancient ones who lived here thousands of years ago and disappeared can be felt at sites where they once lived and hunted.  A visit to Wupatki or Walnut Canyon can give you the same eerie feelings that I’ve felt when standing over the site where the USS Arizona was sunk at Pearl Harbor or when visiting a Civil War battlefield. 

Tales and legends can be fun to hear about and to tell on a tour of town or around a campfire.  But I feel that the real haunts are our feelings and emotions as we relive in our minds the scenes of another time and another place.